Yellowstone National Park

In a trip full of highlights, Yellowstone is pretty close to the top of the list. (Sorry, world’s largest ball of twine! I’ll post about that later.)

Yellowstone is the country’s oldest national park. President Grant established it in a law dated March 1, 1872. It is huge–larger than the state of Rhode Island—and sits on an active volcanic area, although the last volcanic eruption happened about 70,000 years ago.

Field of Steams. (Sorry.)

According to Wikipedia, my go-to source, there are over 10,000 geysers, hot springs, mudpots (acidic pools of boiling mud), and fumaroles (gas-emitting vents) in the park. On average, 465 geysers are active each year, but the formations are changing constantly, with features falling dormant, reawakening, or changing shape. Underlying these features is a massive hydrothermal system heated by magma that lies several miles below the earth’s surface.

Early explorers used to launder their clothes by throwing them into active geysers which would erupt and eject the clothes, boiled clean. Unfortunately, as the tourist trade grew, word of this spread, and people began throwing in socks, handkerchiefs, coins (for good luck), rocks, and other trash into the geysers, in the hopes of seeing them get blown back out of the vent holes. In some cases, the tourists permanently clogged the geysers. The Atlas Obscura notes:

According to The Geysers of Yellowstone, in 1950, [the geyser] Morning Glory was artificially induced to erupt in an effort to clean the trashed pond. The result is said to have blown out all sorts of items including bottles, cans, underwear, 76 handkerchiefs, and $86.27 in pennies. 

As late as 2014, someone crashed their drone into a geyser, and there still are some tourists throwing trash into the geysers. The world is full of stupid people.

A small hot pool.

The temperature of the hot springs can reach 198° F at the surface, and is even hotter below, and the water can be highly acidic as well. Visitors are warned to stay on the paths and away from the water pools, for good reason. In 2016, a 23-year-old tourist, Colin Scott, decided to take a dip in one of the pools. As it was reported,

Scott found a pool and reached down to check the temperature, when he unfortunately slipped and fell into the hot and acidic pool. His body (and wallet and flip flops) was found floating in the pool later that day by park officials, though they were unable to retrieve it at the time due to it being out of reach, and a thunderstorm that developed and prevented them from continuing the job. The next day when they returned, there was nothing of the man left.

The body had literally boiled and dissolved away. Remember: obey the rules in national parks.

This first set of photos is from Yellowstone Lake, a caldera formed by a volcanic eruption approximately 640,000 years ago.

The main attraction is Old Faithful, on the left, which—while not the most impressive geyser in the park—is the most reliable: the Park Service can time the eruptions accurately, and they happen frequently. We also came upon the Daisy Geyser, seen on the right, just as it was about to erupt. (The estimated eruption times are posted online.)

Old Faithful’s eruptions last a while; this is just the beginning.
Daisy erupted for three minutes; this video captures the whole thing.

There is much more to see, including the Grand Prismatic Spring, whose rings of color are created by microbial mats whose color depends on the amount of chlorophyll they contain.

Also, critters:

Next: more Yellowstone.

The Grand Tetons

Our first day in Grand Teton National Park was heavily overcast, which made for some dramatic photographs.

The next day was bright …

… and the following day was a mix.

Next: Yellowstone National Park.

Boise and Beyond

I forgot to write about Boise, which was a surprisingly nice place. For example, there is an Anne Frank Memorial, which opened in 2002 after a traveling exhibition about Anne Frank sparked an outpouring of local interest. Granted, it has been defaced twice by neo-Nazis, but still, it’s there.

Boise also has the Freak Alley Gallery, which also started in 2002 with a single graffiti work. It now extends through the city block and the artwork changes every year.

Beyond Boise, the landscape is beautiful: I’d had no idea that Idaho had desert. This is the Jordan Valley.

Next: really, the Grand Tetons.

The Great Salt Lake

From the country’s largest freshwater lake to its largest saltwater lake …

Of the Great Salt Lake, Wikipedia says

The area of the lake can fluctuate substantially due to its low average depth of 16 feet (4.9 m). In the 1980s, it reached a historic high of 3,300 square miles (8,500 km2), and the West Desert Pumping Project was established to mitigate flooding by pumping water from the lake into the nearby desert. In 2021, after years of sustained drought and increased water diversion upstream of the lake, it fell to its lowest recorded area at 950 square miles (2,500 km2), falling below the previous low set in 1963.

As of July 2022, the lake’s surface is only 950 square miles. Wikipedia continues, “In 2023, scientists at Brigham Young University estimated that without policy changes, the lake would dry up in 2028, with local species killed off by overly salty water somewhat before that. Continued shrinkage could also turn the lake into a bowl of toxic dust, poisoning the air around Salt Lake City.” Get there while there’s still something to see.

Next: Grand Teton National Park

Thunder Mountain Monument, Imlay, Nevada

From the Atlas Obscura:

Frank Van Zant led a fascinating and complex life and left a unique home in Nevada. Though he had a Dutch name, he said he was 100% Creek Indian, and in his later life went by Chief Rolling Thunder. When asked about his name in an interview he replied “I used to use a different name, but I’ve always been Rolling Thunder.”

After serving in World War II, Van Zant worked in California as a police officer for nearly 20 years. In his middle age, he moved to Nevada with his young wife and set up camp in the desert. In the barren sand, he erected a house, sculptures, and a three-story hostel along with many other out buildings, walls and sculptures. Rolling Thunder built each piece of the park himself, mainly out of found objects and scrap metal. He claimed to be tied to the area by a kind of curse and that every time he tried to leave something terrible would happen.

For a while the property acted as a kind of commune, but one by one people drifted off. Van Zant, his wife, and his seven children lived on the farm until the government intervened and child protective services forced the children and their mother to leave Thunder Mountain, leaving Van Zant alone with his sculptures. Shortly thereafter, struggling with depression and failing health, Van Zant passed away in 1989, bequeathing his life’s work to his son, Dan.

Much of the original work of Van Zant was lost in a series of arson fires in 1983 and many of the roofs were leaking. Dan has since cleaned up the park, with the monetary support of strangers. He still hopes to install benches and an underground irrigation system to help restore the areas natural beauty.

Though visitors can’t enter the one remaining building (a large, two-story home constructed from white-wash concrete sculpture and “white man’s trash”) there is much to see in the remains of the hostel, playground, exterior walls, etc., including a vast array of discarded items that have become part of site.

Information panels written by Van Zant’s son describe life in the hostel and explain the project as an homage to the genocide of the Native Americans.

The place is weird, spooky, and compelling.

Crater Lake

Approximately 7,700 years ago in Klamath County, Oregon, Mount Mazama exploded and collapsed, forming a 2,148-foot-deep caldera that eventually filled with fresh water to a depth of 1,949 feet. Known to the local Klamath people as Giiwas and to settlers first as Deep Blue Lake, then Blue Lake, Lake Majesty, and finally, Crater Lake, it is the deepest lake in the United States and the ninth deepest lake in the world.

The lake is simply too large to capture except by iPhone panorama, as above, but here are some other photographs, and it really is this blue. There are two islands in the lake: Wizard Island, and the Phantom Ship rock pillar.

While the Phantom Ship looks small in the photograph, it is 170 feet high: roughly the same height as a 15-story building.

Next: on to Salt Lake.

The Butchart Gardens

The Butchart Gardens is a 120 year-old privately-owned garden located just outside Victoria, BC. The Butcharts had come to the area to run a cement plant, and after the company exhausted the limestone, Mrs. Butchart developed a sunken garden in the resulting quarry. The family continued to expand the project over the following decades, adding a variety of thematic gardens. The property was opened to the public in 1939.

The sun refused to cooperate.

My dad used to photograph flowers, and I never understood why he bothered. I mean, they’re just flowers, right? Walking among the beds, I began to see the appeal. I still wouldn’t use film the way he did, but some of these suckers really are remarkable when viewed from close up.

Lantana
Lacecap hydrangea
Fuschia
Dahlia
A different dahlia
Yet more dahlias
And still another dahlia
Celosia
Zinnia

Next: a little more Victoria.

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